Author Archives: Idris Mootee

I was visiting the biggest modern art gallery DOC (Centre for Contemporary Arts) in Holešovice, Prague. It was first opened in Oct 2008 and now going through some interior work and will be re-opening the other half in a week. It was developed by architect Ivan Kroupa and the idea was to reconstruct old factory buildings from the19th century and ...

Important for CEOs to Maintain and Reset Focus by Idris Mootee Let’s start with this…this is not the best title. I really don’t like the word “brainstorming.” It means a group of people getting together to generate a lot of deas for the solution of a problem. In 1953 Alex Faickney Osborn popularized the method in his book called Applied ...

Important for CEOs to Maintain and Reset Focus by Idris Mootee The recent news about Cisco deciding to get rid of the Flip video business came as no surprise to me. When I first heard that Cisco was purchasing Pure Digital (maker of the flash-based camera Flip) I was wondering what was the strategic logic behind it. Not sure how ...

Easier And Cooler Ways To Transfer Files Between Devices by Idris Mootee When people talk about innovation generally people are quick to refer to something completely new. The question is how many new ideas are really new? Or recantation of old ideas or new applications of old ideas? Or just new ways to package old ideas? It is not uncommon ...

The Experiments Have Only Begun by Idris Mootee This is my response to Bruce Nussbaum’s latest Fast Company’s blog declaring “Design Thinking” is over and that he is moving on to something new. He is calling it “Creative Quotient” which is really his new book, I was wondering why he would make that statement. People hardly fully understand what Design ...

Let’s start with ‘What Is The Core?’ by Idris Mootee One interesting dilemma about strategy and innovation is how far we move away from our core and more importantly how do you define the core? What are the core competencies of Gap? Netflix? LVMH? BMW? Hermes? Canon? Nike? Marc Jacob? Blackberry? Samsung? HP? Target? Starbucks? Do they even have anything ...

If So, Do You Know Where It Comes From? by Idris Mootee Do you trust your intuition? And if so why? Intuition is most practiced and least understood. And why some people are betting at it and some not? Can intuition be rational and strategic? Is there something called ‘strategic intuition?’ What makes your intuition strategic and mine not? Most ...

I was watching the film ‘Inception’ on a long flight last week and I remembered one interesting dialogue from the film “How do you translate business strategy into emotion?”. I was not really watching as I was editing the next issue of M/I/S/C magazine, but the line caught my attention. I rewound it back and tried to make sure if ...

My rankings PLUS places that do well at d-school + b-school by Idris Mootee I spent a good half-day in London at the Royal College of Art last week and lunch with Nick Leon of Design London. We exchange views of design thinking and the world of design and where it is going. Also met with some other faculties and ...

Failure is part of building to last. I Hope I’m Not Confusing You. by Idris Mootee We love to read successful innovation and design stories of how a cool idea turns into great success story. The reality is most cute or good ideas don’t make it to the executive’s desk and even for those who did, most products and services ...